When Tom DeLay was forced to resign in disgrace, and the “culture of corruption” theme was just starting to catch on, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) sought the House Majority Leader post promising reform. He would end the K Street Project, pass ethics and lobbying reform measures, and show no tolerance for corruption.
Then he actually became the GOP House leader — and decided reform wasn’t that important after all.
When Reps. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) and Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) became the subjects of FBI raids, Boehner pushed them to give up their committee assignments. But party operatives said Doolittle and Renzi are not facing pressure to resign from the House for now — in part because the House GOP campaign committee does not want the expense of competing to keep their seats in a special election.
And Boehner is coming under fire from his own members over the decision to replace Doolittle on the House Appropriations Committee with Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). Calvert himself is facing ethics scrutiny over a land deal in his Southern California district.
The Calvert decision underscores the complexity of Boehner’s task, as he tries simultaneously to clean house and keep peace within his own caucus. The California delegation was insistent that the coveted Appropriations seat go to one of their own, following long-standing custom. But the move has upset other GOP members and some conservative bloggers, who fear that Calvert’s alleged problems will feed the party’s reputation for corruption.
“If only John Boehner the Republican leader would act like John Boehner the leadership candidate, the Republican Conference would be in a much stronger position,” said a House Republican aide who works for a lawmaker upset with Boehner’s move. “Decisions like the Calvert appointment cripple our party’s ability to be associated with reform, and until our leadership changes direction, they are leading this conference even further into the political abyss.”
Boehner has been confronted with a series of choices. What’s more important — asking corrupt lawmakers (like Doolittle and Renzi) to resign, or having to worry about keeping the seat in Republican hands? Boehner chose the latter. What’s more important — congressional ethics or keeping an Appropriations Committee seat in the hands of a Californian? Again, Boehner chose the latter.
It’d be funny if it weren’t so ridiculous.
And what about the grassroots pushback against the Calvert decision that we talked about last week? RedState, the conservative blog, is moving forward with its plans to pressure lawmakers…
A popular conservative blog has intensified its call to pull Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) from the powerful House Appropriations Committee, launching a coordinated effort to target members of the GOP Steering Committee who voted to appoint him.
Erick Erickson, the editor in chief of www.Redstate.com, said yesterday that he had received encouragement from Hill staffers and some lawmakers who believe GOP leadership needs a wake-up call. At press time, several conservative websites and blogs, including the Club for Growth’s site, had linked to Erickson’s proposal to remove Calvert from the Appropriations panel.
“This party of ours must be pruned, and it must be pruned by those of us who care about it before meeting the butchers’ sheers [sic] in the hands of the voters again in 2008,” Erickson wrote to The Hill. “If they refuse to hear that change is needed, we will wipe them out and replace them with new blood that recognizes that a corrupt party rejected by the voters will not be embraced again by the voters until the corruption is purged.”
…while the GOP leadership wants the caucus to blow RedState off.
According to House staffers, Boehner’s staff is out putting pressure on Steering Committee members to not say how they voted on Calvert.
Two different people tell me the deck is so stacked in Boehner’s favor that even if a majority of the Steering Committee voted against Calvert, he could still get on Appropriations. But, that would look terrible to have a majority vote against Calvert and him still getting on Appropriations.
So, Boehner is pressuring the Steering Committee to totally ignore us.
This is only going to get more interesting. Stay tuned.